


Taking Care of Business

by escalove (starryeyedsea)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen, OCs - Freeform, gen - Freeform, mangaverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-17
Updated: 2010-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-12 18:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedsea/pseuds/escalove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris Mustang builds her legacy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Care of Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seta_suzume](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=seta_suzume).



> Written for [](http:).

Chris Mustang (at the fresh age of 26) walked into the office of Baker and Baker and proceeded straight past the receptionist's desk and straight into the office of Lawrence Baker and without word to him or the man sitting across from him, she slammed a handful of cenz onto his desk.

"What is this? As you can see I am busy…" Mr. Baker stammered while quickly giving the other client a look of apology.

"This is the money for my bar," she said, "now where is my title."

"This is hardly appropriate," he said, but he didn't continue because at that moment she shot him a glare that he swore would melt both the North and South Poles and then refreeze them again. It was a look that her friends and coworkers (and later on her nephew) were well acquainted with. It usually signaled that Chris would get her way or else.

"Of course," he said, "If you excuse me Mr. Waters, I will just get the…deed for Miss…I mean Madam Mustang. And we can finish after that."

* * *

It was little under an hour when Chris Mustang walked out of Baker & Baker and joined a blonde woman standing at the street corner, casually taking a drag of her cigarette. She turned when she saw Chris and quickly threw the cigarette down and put it out with the base of her shoe.

"Did you get it?" she asked.

"I did, you didn't think I would, did you Val?" Chris replied with a wink.

"I knew you would. I was just wondering whether the police have been called and we have to make a getaway," Val replied.

"It was all legal," Chris said, "and you should have seen the look on his face. Didn't know what to do with himself."

"I am sure, so I guess this is the beginning, isn't it Chris?"

"Look it is Madam Christmas now," Chris said, "be respectful, I'm you're boss now."

* * *

Chris Mustang was not what one would call an ambitious person. Well at least that is what other people, including her own family would say. They would be lying of course. Chris Mustang was plenty ambitious, it was just that her ambitions pointed in a different direction from most other peoples.

And unlike her parents and even her brother, Chris Mustang had a vision, she had a plan. It wasn't fully formed yet, but she was going to have a place of her own. And this place would be safe and useful and it would be hers. Not anyone else's. That was what she had thought.

Her parents might have given her more support for her adventure into owning her own business had her business been anything other than a hostess bar.

Of course Chris Mustang did not enlighten her family as to what her bar was really doing.

* * *

The bar had been open for little over a month when Madam Christmas and her girls were given the honor of receiving a visit from Colonel Grumman. He was not dressed in his military uniform but rather a plain suit and tie and from the moment he walked in all the girls went into a state of a tizzy. Clara was the lucky one matched and Chris had to keep herself from giving a snort at the girls constant giggling. But she refrained, and Clara was a good hostess, she would be able to handle herself.

She kept an eye on them as they sat a a booth towards the back of the club and he seemed comfortable and talkative, and every now and then Clara would let out a slight giggle. She had heard he was good with women from some of the other girls who had picked it up from other clients, and was a bit curious whether the rumors were true and how much money she could glean off of him.

However as she watched him she noted that he didn't seem quite as flirty as she had expected. Chris Mustang was excellent at reading clients, it was what had made her a good hostess back in the day and what made her an excellent bar madam. She knew just where to touch, and what she saw in General Grumman was not the posture or the demeanor of a seasoned womanizer so much as man with an overabundance of strategic charm.

And so it was not entirely a surprise when a about an hour into the engagement that Clara signaled her to come and join them. It wasn't something that happened often, but every now and again her appearance was a bit necessary to help move things a long.

"Well what can I do for you Colonel," she said when she reached their table, "are the drinks and company to your liking?"

"Oh the drinks are just fine, and the company is most definitely to my liking, it is for that reason that I wanted to speak to the owner of this fine establishment."

Chris Mustang knew damn well that that was not the reason he had called her over there.

"Clara, I feel the Colonel would could use another glass, could you go and get one," she said.

"Of course Madam," Clara said and quickly scurried off.

"Such a nice girl, a bit shallower than what I expected," he said.

"I am sorry that she did not live up to your expectations," Chris replied, "should I get another hostess to help you?"

"No, that would be unnecessary, I am here to see you," he said.

Chris raised her eyebrows.

"You don't seem like a woman who has any need for formalities so let's get to the point." Grumman said, "It has come to my attention that you and your girls may have information that I want, or if not a way for me to procure it."

"Colonel, it would be a gross violation of any and all ethics of my trade if I broke the confidence of my clients and my employees," she said.

"I know, but I am sure we can come to an agreement that will withstand whatever objections you might have," he said, "an arrangement that will be a benefit to the both of us."

"Go on," she said.

"I have known what you have been doing for awhile now, and I would like in on this business of yours," he said.

"What business," Chris Mustang was not liking this line of questioning. She didn't want to be caught by this hack, Colonel or not.

"I know that you have been secret agent for several of the military officers here in Central, ever since your days as a hostess on that bar across town," he said.

Chris was silent.

"You shouldn't say it out loud," she said, "I can't afford to buy another place."

"So I see, you were fired because your previous employer found out about your side business," he said.

"I don't see why you need to sit here and tell me all these things that I am plenty aware of," she said, "but since you have found me out, I suppose we should strike a deal. What information do you want."

"I want information on all the higher ups and my fellow officers," he said, "I have places I want to go."

"Well this is interesting," she said, "most of my other clients lack that sort of vision. Planning to overthrow the establishment."

"No," he said, "but I am not going to just stay here the whole time either."

"Tailing the higher ups is a pretty extensive job, even for my girls," she said, "and besides how do you know I won't sell you out."

"Because you wouldn't dream of it, you sell me out and I will give you to the top brass. They wouldn't be happy with what you are doing here, " he said, "and I will pay you 819,700 cenz for each piece of information you give me, along with keeping the top brass off your bar."

Chris smiled.

"You drive a hard bargain, and I would dissolve this place before you could even touch me, but I will see what I can do," she said, "but be advised if you fail, I will shoot you in the head before you bring me and my girls down."

"A bit protective aren't we?" he asked.

"What can I say, Colonel," she said, "I take care of my own."

"An admirable trait."

"We do what we can," she said, and gave him a wink as she spotted Clara returning to the table, "Come to the bar later, I will give you what I have later. Oh and Colonel. Our offer is only standard until the time that I find a better candidate."

"I will keep that in mind," he said, "I will be out of town over the week, my daughter is getting married you see, but I will check in once I get back and with the proper payment."

"Of course," she said, "I'll be waiting."

* * *

It was 6 in the evening, still early so hardly any clients had come in, but most of the girls were crowded at the window, waiting for their boss to come home.

"So what do you think he will look like?"

"It is hard to imagine Madame as a mother."

"She isn't going to be a mother, it is her nephew."

"Still, he is pretty young isn't he. She will be practically raising him."

"Oh I hope he is cute."

"Laurie, he is 8 don't be inappropriate!"

"What is all the hubbub about. Don't you all have work to do?"

The girls looked up to see Madame Christmas standing stalwart in the doorway.

"Yes, yes madam!" one of the girls, Sally, said as the girls stood at attention, like a little army.

"Is he here?" another Laurie suddenly piped up and all the other girls looked at her trying to tell her to be quiet.

"Who?" Madame Christmas asked, though she knew who they were referring to, but she was a bit annoyed that they were spending time gossiping as opposed to keeping her bar running. They may have been hostesses, but a bunch of gossips wasn't actually what she looked for in her employees.

"Your nephew!" Laurie replied.

She sighed, she would have to sit Laurie down later and have a talk. The girl could use a bit of retraining.

"He is home, and you all can meet him later. Now I see we have a few clients, let's say we serve them," she said.

Later, when she arrived she arrived back at her apartment complex and had properly fed the boy, and sent him to bed did she wander into her room and pull out a picture of her brother and his wife with their son when he was all of 9 months old, it was the only picture that they had ever cared to send her. Her parents had been dead for awhile and she hadn't really talked to her brother in a few years. He had been busy with his own family and his own life. She felt a pang of regret, but pushed it aside, she wasn't one to mull over loss, and the boy would expect her to be strong. She focused for a brief moment on her sister in law, who looked remarkably different from Chris in that she was tall, slender and had bright auburn. She looked genteel and proper. She looked like a mother, very unlike her own self, Chris thought. Having a child had never been on her plans. She always saw other things to do.

Yet here she was, with a child, not her own, but a child, and for the first time Chris felt a little bit unequipped. She wondered for a brief moment whether she change things and go somewhere else, she doubted most people would approve of a woman raising a boy in hostess bar. But she stopped.

That bar was her dream, and her girls had nowhere else to go. People counted on her, and as bad as she felt for her nephew in losing his parents and being stuck with her, she couldn't put aside her life and work for him. No she would go on as she had always done with a few adjustments. Roy can just get used to it. Besides he shared some of her blood, and there were a few things that she could teach him that his own parents would never even have dreamed of.

"I am sorry Diane," she said, "I probably won't bring him up the way you would have wanted. But I am not going to change my ways. Just know, I will make sure he grows up fine. I take care of my own."

And she promises this to herself, that she would protect him, and her girls to make up for the fact that she had not been able to protect them.

* * *

The visits with Grumman came every few months or so, and Chris and her girls worked steadily on gathering information. Business was booming, but information trading was always booming in a country like Amestris where the government specialized in secrets, and Chris Mustang specialized in finding them out.

Roy was doing well and had taken up the study of alchemy. Alchemy was a science that Chris had never been prone to nor had any sort of knack for. Her next door neighbor was an alchemist who would come in and repair things when they were broken, and Roy had probably gotten the idea to study it from the neighbor.

Unfortunately the neighbor was mostly an amateur and Roy had quickly exhausted her knowledge and he was old enough that he probably needed to go somewhere else to study.

But Chris Mustang was a bit out of her league in that department, and she also had other things to worry about, like the fact that one of her newer girls had almost been caught trying to squeeze one of Lieutenant Generals for information on an upcoming meeting that was going to be held with the Fuhrer and other important people.

She had sent Madeline, Miranda, and Charlotte, who were pretty much her best agents at procuring information but she had also had them take Yvette, so that she could learn the ropes. It had been a simple job but Yvette had stupidly gotten herself past the security at the main Central Office and had to get out before she was arrested for trespassing and the Lieutenant General in trouble.

Chris Mustang didn't know who was more foolish, Yvette or the Lieutenant General. Girl had to learn a bit of sense, but Chris Mustang didn't the think the General had any real excuse.

When Grumman, who Chris referred to as that due to the fact that he had changed rank quite a few times and she never remembered his proper title was and she wasn't in the military anyways so why should she have to worry, walked into the bar that evening she had to shrug and tell him that she had not managed to get anything but a possible time and place and some vague mumblings about something going on one of the labs though Chris had not been able to figure out what all that had meant.

"Afraid I don't know how this will do you much good," she said, "but things have been crazy."

"I heard that one of them had almost been caught," he said, "I am glad to hear she got out all right."

"It was her own damn fault," Chris said, "I don't know how one of my girls could be so careless."

"Well that is a matter for you to handle," he said, "but this information isn't completely unhelpful, although honestly I am somewhat and surprised that I don't know about any of this."

"Don't ask me, maybe they smell your ambition," she said.

"Doubtful," he said, "I have a pretty good mask. No one takes me that seriously."

Chris Mustang refrained from putting forth that that may have been part of the problem but she stopped. Grumman was a client after all.

"How is that boy of yours," he asked, "planning to go into the military any time soon."

"Who knows?" Chris said with a shrug, "boy is trying to find an alchemy teacher. Unfortunately none of them seem to be interesting enough to him."

"Well my son-in-law is an alchemist," he replied, "though I feel he has a terrible track record with pupils. He never seems to like anyone. But if you want I would suggest he give it a try."

"Will do, though I am sure he will like him, it is hard not to like that boy," Chris said with an almost soft smile but then that disappeared as she got back to business.

"You're very proud of him" Grumman said matter of factly, but Chris refused to respond. Grumman may have been a client and a very well liked one at that but Chris didn't open up to just anyone.

"He will be alright," she said, "I think he might even someday upstage you Grumman."

"I guess this means my days are numbered."

"All good things come to an end. Now I know it wasn't much, but I still expect to be paid."

"Of course," he said and slipped an envelope across the table and she took it, "this will be the last time anyways, I am afraid they are sending me out to the East."

"I see," she said.

"I guess I don't have to tell you to take care of yourself."

"You don't need to worry about me," she said, "I always take care of my own."

* * *

It was late when Chris called Val.

"What are you calling me for at this late of an hour Chris," Val said.

"Just wanted to tell you that the bar is closing tomorrow."

"What, when did this happen?" she heard Val exclaim across the line, "has business been bad?"

"It has never been better actually," Chris said, "I am just ready for a new stage of my life."

"I see, well at least it was a long run, are you sure you will be okay?"

"I will be just fine, and my business will definitely go out with a bang."

"You just stole that line from your nephew didn't you?"

"Heh, maybe the brat has rubbed off on me a bit," she said.

"Or you rubbed off on him."

"Doubtful, I would never come up with half the stuff he comes up with, boy has to go his own way," she looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath, "and so do I."

* * *

Chris stared at the group of girls in front of her solemnly. Their had been so many girls (well women, but they would always be girls to Chris, everyone seemed so young to her now) over the years and Chris had quite honestly loved them all. She took care of them and trained them. And though a lot of them had left to travel, to get married, or just move on, she could still remember all their names, and she knew in a weird way that their spirits were in the room with her and this current and final crop.

"You have done well," Chris said, "But I suggest it is time for you all to go."

"Something bad is going to happen, isn't it?" Vanessa asked. They had been dredging up information for years and it was hard not to notice the signs, particularly in the last few months.

"Yes, but I am sure you all have made plans. I wouldn't worry," Chris said.

"Where are you going to go," Vanessa asked.

"I don't know," Chris said, "the West sounds nice, or maybe to the East. I don't much fancy crossing a desert though."

"Should we come back?" another girl, Denise, asked. "Or Can We…"

"I think it is time to move on," Chris said, "I don't think there will be much of a bar for you to come back to to be honest. And I think we all need to move on. The world is about to change after all."

"Thank you, so much Madame!" Vanessa said as she without warning hugged the older woman.

Chris just stood there silently. She had never been a hugger, but she submitted.

She was growing soft in her old age.

————————————————————————————————————————

The wedding was small and intimate, and Chris was thankful that despite the bride and groom's reputation and status that there wasn't that much of a hoopla going about. Chris hated fusses, and weddings were a family affair, even if the groom was the soon to be next Fuhrer.

She quickly spotted Grumman among the reception's guests and meandered over to him quietly.

"Well if it isn't Madame Christmas!" he said, "you seem to have grown even lovelier with age."

Chris just scowled at him.

"You haven't changed either," she said, "and I am not Madame Christmas today. Just Aunt of the Groom."

"I suppose, and on that note I am not the Fuhrer either," he said, "Just grandfather of the bride."

She gave a slight smile.

"We did good," she said, "and I see you got what you wanted."

"I think you did good," he said, "I can't take any credit. I can see a lot of your former girls are here."

"Well a lot of them helped me raise that boy," she said, "it is only appropriate that they are here."

"That is good," Grumman said and he tipped his hat to her and walked off, "I sometimes wonder how you did it all those years."

"It was simple," Chris said, "I hate having to repeat myself, but you just have to take care of your own Grumman. That is all there is to it.

And Chris looked into the guests and then to her nephew and his wife and then across the crowd as she picked out all of her former employees and smiled.

Chris Mustang had wanted to rule her own world. That bar in the middle of Central was supposed to have been her greatest legacy. Her exciting life in the middle of an extremely messed up world. But as she stood there and saw her nephew and her girls, she realized that her parents had been right, she hadn't been ambitious enough.

Because the legacy she had wanted was so much smaller then the legacy that she actually had.


End file.
